Internet Marketing Guest Posts

Short Introduction: Top ten WordPress plugins for social media marketers that can help in publishing their information on number of different social media platforms by customizing WordPress plugins.

10 WordPress Plugins For Social Media Marketers

Social media has captured the attention of all the marketers who want to promote their content on the Internet. That is because social media has completely revolutionized the marketing process by increasing the coverage of content on the different platforms for the users. Therefore, people commonly subscribe to popular platforms like Google+, Twitter and Facebook to find updates on the news and products they want to view online. We are providing information on the 10 WordPress plugins for social media marketers to make your marketing process easier so that you can publicize your content with the help of these tools.

1. Monarch —Membership Component For Elegant Themes

In a short period of time, Elegant Themes have made a great impression in the social media marketing of WordPress plugins, Monarch is one of their most popular social media marketing solutions. It allows the user to show the buttons for social media sharing in a floating bar and in a popup. The buttons can also be seen above and below content. For the viewer’s convenience they can be viewed at the bottom of each page. The buttons look amazing they can support more than twenty social media networks.

2. WordPress Plugins called Easy Social Share Buttons for $14

The Easy Social Share Buttons can be obtained from CodeCanyon for the price of $14; it is a feature-rich package that covers more than twenty social media networks. Our team has utilized the plugins for months on the company blog (before we switched to Monarch), and we greatly appreciate the broad range of icon collection it offered. If you are searching for the social media sharing plugins with number of configurations, Easy Social Share Buttons is suitable for you.

3. Freeware Social Media Plugins Simple Share Buttons Adder

Simple Share Buttons Adder is a minimum plugin solution for WordPress that enables the end user to automatically incorporate social media buttons at the top and lower end of your content fields. It has number of different setting panels and consists of twelve icon sets, nineteen embedded templates, template settings utility, four button categories, nine counter categories, a short code developer and plenty of options.

4. Freeware Plugins From Social Sharing by Danny

Social Sharing from Danny is one of our design team’s top quality social media plugins for WordPress. It is a simple set of plugins that incorporate sharing buttons of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ at the end of content, pages and websites. The plugins consist of few fundamental options: You can alter the text label, mention your Twitter username, and select whether 16 pixel or 32 pixel picture icons are placed on your pages.

5. Freeware Plugins By AddThis

AddThis offers number of social media sharing options and five of these tools are free to utilize by the customers and five are offered to those customers who upgrade their plugins to pro plan that sums up to $12 per month or $99 for one year. They also provide four tools that can be used to follow the traffic, two tools that can be used for marketing and eight content utilities.All the tools are adjusted on the AddThis web page. The customers need to install the plugins and activate the account from the website. Once this simple task is completed any adjustments you make to your AddThis account will be deployed on your website.

6. Freeware Plugins From Shareaholic

Shareaholic is diversified free WordPress plugin that provides social media promoting buttons and related tools for content blocks.The plugin has excellent settings page from which you can manually adjust your sharing buttons specifically for above and below the text of your posts, websites and homepages. The plugins consists of eight unique categories. The customizer enables the individuals to select from the 4 themes and 7 headlines.

ShareThis consists of top class social media information sharing plugins that provide 3 button tools, and offers a staggering one hundred and twenty media networks and utilities. Buttons can be incorporated above and below the content fields and there is an option for either floating bars or static bar that is specifically built to display the different buttons at the start of each page.

8. Freeware Plugins From Floating Social Bar

If you want a top standard social media plugin then you should try Floating Social Bar that defines a top standard row of popular sharing buttons on the top of content posts, pages and websites. When the customer views the page the sharing bar remains static on the start of the page.

9. Freeware Plugins By Jetpack

Jetpack has transformed into one the most up to date WordPress plugins in the market. It consists of thirty four utilities and numerous other tools that are being developed by the Automatic, the company that runs WordPress.com

The social media sharing utility is simple with a plenty of excellent features. It supports up to nine social media networks with the email and print buttons. You can show icons, content or icon and contents for standard sharing buttons. The buttons can be showed on the home page and archives. They can also be displayed on the search results, posts and web pages. You can fix them on your posts, pages and media. The label of shared content and username for Twitter can also be manually specified.

10. Freeware Plugins From Mashshare

Developed from the specifications from news blog Mashable, Mashare is a popular top class media plugin. The free plugin supports Facebook and Twitter utilities and displays the top standard shares and reviews. The sharing bar can be deployed to display the shares on above or below the web content, with pages and other post categories.

The plugins also provide a subscription box that can be utilized to adjust the content that can be deployed from WordPress editor. There is also an option to join the subscribe button manually to a URL. The subscription box is an excellent feature of this plugin that enables Mashshare to stay ahead of competition.

Launch Yourself Into The World Of Blogging

Blogging has been around for quite some time. In fact some of the most visited online sources for fashion, tech and politics, among others, are blogs. Bloggers have not only transformed their popularity into increased number of clicks but also their blogs into a source of revenue. However, not everyone took this trend up when it was just a flourishing idea; some users have only begun using blogs to air their views. With time internet usage trends keep changing; here is a brief but smart guide for what you need to know about blogging in 2014.

Blogging Is Personal, Yet A Responsibility:

Blogging as an idea in itself is a personal endeavor. However, it will not be so personal once you get down to the business side of it, or once you write on topics that by their very nature are not personal. A blog is not an exercise in writing but it is an excellent place to express your personal creativity but you cannot take advantage of the same excuse if you are writing on politics, or advising your followers on fashion. This makes it of paramount importance that you be careful with what you write because it might come back to haunt you someday. Also make a schedule as to when you will post new entries and when you will comment. Without consistency, you won’t get far.

Cost Factor And Job:

Host your blog on a blogging service provider like WordPress or Blogger for free and save money. You don’t need to get a domain in your name. Similarly, you need to do it, the blogging, as something you can do on the side, along with your day job or at least as long as you cannot afford to be a full time blogger. This will help you keep the bucks coming while you can get down to the nitty gritty of getting your blog growing up to become a massive attraction for followers.

Design, Content And Hired Hands:

Choose a design that suits the content that you want to base your blog on. Do not make it flashy or something unless that is what you want. You should try your hands only on the topics you are comfortable with. If you are okay with something, then you should take it head on; but if you are not, you should first cover all your bases before moving on to writing something about it. You can also hire someone to do the job as well. Just make sure that you oversee all the content that they create for your blog, for it is your blog after all.

Use Blogging Software And Services:

You should use blogging services and software to make the best out of your time. They not only help you create beautiful looking blogs but they will also help you finish your tasks in an organized and timely manner. Most blogging software have their mobile applications as well. Use them to post an entry if you are on the road. Also take full advantage of social media to promote your blog.

Interactive, Informative:

Focus on making your blog more interactive and informative. Long blog entries, or posts, are still read but with the arrival of blogging applications on the mobile devices, longer posts are losing their charm. Add images, graphics, audio, video, infographic and such to help your blog stand out among the rut. Also allow your followers to interact with you through comments and emails, provide links to your social networking profiles and invite them to participate in quizzes, surveys and such. This will keep your followers tied up to you blog for a long time

Monetize:

Make every effort to monetize your blog. Use Google’s various ad services and ads from other companies. You should also make sure that you do not take affiliates lightly. They prove handy when it comes to making some serious bucks of your blog.

What’s In, What’s Out:

Most of all you should always be careful about what you are writing on. Write on topics that are in and avoid the ones that are on the out. A fresh perspective on an old topic will also work but make sure that you have something unique and different to add to the already tried topic.

About Our Guest Blogger Racheal Dane:

Racheal Dane is a wordsmith who prides herself in her ability to sight a typo from miles away. Her passion has led her to become a professional blogger and her dedication towards mastering her craft has made her a respectable blogging expert. In private life, she is renowned for holding a fulfilling conversation on her own and you will never find her short of words.

Increasing your foot traffic is a powerful method to grow your business. The benefits should be very clear: the more people you bring in, the more sales you can make. If you can deliver real value to consumers, you have a bigger chance to build a healthy, profitable business. But how do you do this? With specialized sales, of course.

Incentives Consumer Visits

Specialized sales are a secret weapon for brick and motor retail businesses such as gift shops. This tactic should never be overused; you want to do it in moderation so that you don’t devalue your brand or your business.

What sort of specialized sales inspire consumer interest and draw in tons of foot traffic? Here are Five powerful incentive models:

Specialized Sale #1 - First Purchase Is Free

No, it doesn’t mean you give your customer back their money or waive the price. That wouldn’t be smart. This tactic generally involves that you offer your customer a certificate, card, or stamp card so that the next time the customer visits your store; he or she can apply the dollar value of his or her first purchase towards the value of the second purchase. This makes his or her first purchase essentially free, assuming your customer comes back. And your customer will.

You’ll want to create a minimum purchase amount to qualify to avoid abuse. When totally up the second purchase, you give a credit for the first purchase. For example: When a customer spends $40 or more, they get a $70 coupon that you can apply to your next purchase of $100 or more. See, it’s not that hard.

Specialized Sale #2 – Limited Time Discounts

This is a tried and true tactic. You’ll want to make sure this is adequately promoted with in-store displays and social media announcements. Example: 20% off of a product for this week only.

Specialized Sale #3 - Give Away Goodies-Free

What if you gave something away every time a purchase is made? How awesome is that? Your customers would love you! This can be literally any item you want. You can offer a free gift card or bag. It doesn’t have to be valuable, but the point is, your customers will feel valued when they get something for doing business with you. For example banks give a dog biscuit at the drive-in window when you dog is in the car with you.

Specialized Sale #4 – Reward For Google+ Reviews

If you are for example a gift shop owner, you know it would be smart to delight your existing clients who would spread the message of your fast, friendly, and reliable service to others in an organic method such as social media. For example a gift card will be mailed when they give you a good review on Google+.

Specialized Sale #5 – Specialized Sales

Specialized sales invite imagination and creativity. You can think of lots of ways to inspire customers to visit your store or online site. It’s not hard; all you have to do is imagine what would tickle your customer’s fancy. For example they can get a big discount at Halloween time when they come in dressed in their costume.

Specialized sales are a great way to make sure your business and brand is well known. You’ll attract lots of customers to visit your store and if you’re smart, they’ll be coming back again to make other purchases. You don’t have to hand out free items on a daily basis and you can hold weekly offerings instead of daily ones so you don’t get hit with eager shoppers all at one time, unless you particularly want that to happen. For example every Monday morning the people that purchased over $50 can go into a drawing for a prize.

Your Turn…

If you are retail business owner such a gift shop owner and you have found some great incentives to increase foot traffic please share with our readers below.

About Our Guest Blogger Lydia Phil:

Lydia Phil, is known for shopping tips and news. She goes around the world, learning new ideas and tips on shopping. She also writes blogs for the business people giving them more suggestions to increase the sales and customer service. She writes on topics such as How to improve gift shop retail sales

How Will Google’s HummingBird Algorithm Affect Online Marketing?

What is the new HummingBird algorithm?

Have you heard about the new algorithm yet? When Google celebrated its 15th birthday this last Fall they announced their new algorithm called the “HummingBird”. What is it and what should you look out for? This new algorithm is all about upgrading the quality and speed of search results. In this article we will discuss the update changes, how it affects the SEO world, ranking, and online marketing.

Does Each Of The Major Changes In Google’s Algorithms Have Names?

Yes, we all know that Google updates its search engine algorithms rather often, and the number of the updates within a year may reach several hundred. Of course, the changes that arise from the updates are very small and hardly detectable, and in some cases the users are totally unaware about them. On the other hand, Google makes sure that its most large and tangible algorithm changes have their own names.

What Does Google HummingBird Change And What Does This Change For Online Marketers?

The big change is in the deciding by a new algorithm which data will be used for the information given from the search. Here are 4 changes with this new update:

1. Understand Human Conversation Queries

The old method of putting in a few keywords will be as effective for a search. HummingBird want to understand human conversations. Variations of keywords are what is going to be searched for. So when people are searching for an answer to a question, your answer will more likely be chosen to appear in the search results.

2. Content Writing Needs To Answer The 5 W’s

HummingBird is asking Google to go deeper into variations in your keywords according to the big 5 W questions – who, what, when, where, why. This means your content now needs to answer entire questions and details for those 5 W’s.

3. Keywords Are Less Important And Questions Are More Important

What would you ask a real person not a computer? This is what the new HummingBird algorithm wants - to humanize questions and statements. What are you really looking for?

4. Semantic Search

The Hummingbird’s update also adds a special tool for comparison when you need to compare two similar products. Google’s goal is to provide its users with a well-organized set of data that gives thorough information on the inquiries made. What drives search from now on due to this huge change is semantics. A redesign and a update of Google Search for mobile devices was also made, which is due to the fact that there were iOS and iPad updates also expected. Increasing social interaction by having your content answer those big 5 W’s as an authority so the result will increase the likelihood of even more social interaction which will keep you on the computer even longer is very important.

What Were The Major Recent Algorithm Updates?

Such algorithm updates were the “Panda” and the “Penguin” that we all know pretty well, and which purpose was to decrease the number of low-quality websites and web content in the search results of the search engine machines. The most serious change in Google algorithm before the HummingBird update was in June 2013 and is called “Caffeine”. This helped Google give users faster results by redoing web indexing. Other Google updates are “Universal Search” and “Search Plus Your World”.

Do These Past Updates Still Matter?

Yes, past updates matter when it come to online marketing. Quality content and pagerank is still important and is like the guts of Google’s HummingBird. What’s new is changing the search results by making their answers more human.

What Qualities Do Real Humming Birds Have That Led To Their Choosing To Name This Algorithm After Them?

The name of the new update of the search engine machines was not randomly chosen. Just like the real humming bird is well-known for its precision and speed, which is also the main purpose of Google. Google managers are claiming that after the HummingBird update, the search engine will become faster and more exact in its results.

Was The HummingBird The Next Step Logical After Google’s Knowledge Graph?

Yes, although Google announced the latest update of its algorithm on its birthday, the whole process started about a month earlier. The HummingBird update expands the use of Google Knowledge Graph, which was launched last year as a way to help the search engine to understand the relationship between different concepts, rather than just to detect keyword matches. Knowledge Graph structures the data found when a certain keyword is searched for. After all, data doesn’t have to be contained in only one website or document, but may be found in different sources.

How Does HummingBird Help The Knowledge Graph?

Moreover, the HummingBird update expands the use of Knowledge Graph in order to give the search engine machine the opportunity to provide its users with the best answers to inquiries that do not have simple answers only. That is exactly why Amit Singhal, who is the Senior Vice President and Software Engineer in Google Search gave an example with his blog post connected with a search such as “tell me about artists impressionists”. This is an example of a search that has no parameters and there is an enormous range of relevant facts.

That is exactly why Google has put so much effort in their HummingBird update. Knowledge Graph is supposed to help Google understand also when a subsequent search is connected with a previous one, instead of considering your inquiries as separate and unrelated ones.

So, when we are thinking about the future, there is nothing else to expect from the world’s largest and most famous search engine but to continue its efforts to facilitate its consumers by updating and improving its search options.

Back To You…

If you have had experiences of liking or disliking the changes of how HummingBird affects the new search? If you understand how to use cleaver keyword combinations for ranking, please share with our readers below.

About Our Guest Blogger Jane Mires:

Jane Mires is a writer and web enthusiast. She works as a designer at House Cleaners South Kensignton.

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Extending The Shelf Life Of Your Content – The Easy Way

Are you a blogger or writer that is searching for a way to keep your content fresh and increase its shelf life?

When you publish a blog post it only stays fresh and in the public eye for so long. If you want to sustain your content for a longer period of time, you need to develop new strategies. Most of the successful content writers follow a pattern that is unique. Do you want to increase the shelf life of your content? This article provides eight strategies that can extend the overall shelf life of the content you created so it will outlast other writer’s content.

Extending the shelf life of your content the easy way:

Content Strategy #1

The first step is to search for archives as this can help you to find material that could be helpful in extending the shelf life of your content.

Content Strategy #2

Evaluate your old posts and you may find a new idea emerging from it. A new little idea can be the big thing for the future. You can even combine different set of ideas to churn out a much bigger idea that has larger audiences and can sustain interest for longer period of time.

Content Strategy #3

Spend more time at networking events and keep abreast of the latest trends. There is a social media site called Meetup.com that is a great place to network. Put in your interest and zip code and find business networking groups near you.

Content Strategy #4

Social media updates can be converted into bigger stories that will last in the public interest for long time. There are interesting tweets that can be explored and can act as a strong base for your next writing. Just check your tweet stream or Facebook page updates and timelines for better results. For more information check out the article, “Has your social media gone stale“?

Content Strategy #5

You can spread the same message in different formats but in an interesting manner. The same piece of information can be converted into an audio form or video form.

Content Strategy #6

Turn your PowerPoint presentations into a slide share (go to slideshare.net). Just give the readers a taste and then they have to go to your website to see more. It can be used to showcase the main headlines of your writing or author notes. Give value to your audience and readers.

Content Strategy #7

Speeches can be converted into a useful and meaningful content.

Content Strategy #8

In the end, the main key to keeping your content sustained is to always provide rich and unique content. Make your blog or content so informative that the users don’t have to move to another website for the information that he or she are searching for.

If you are planning to be an effective content writer and want to increase the time period your content can be sustained, consult SEO India agency that specializes in sustaining your content.

If you have had any strategies that have worked for you comment below and share with our readers.

About Our Guest Raj Kumar Mishra:

Raj Kumar Mishra has more than five years of experience as Online Media and Marketing Consultant, which allows him to enable companies to enhance and meet their Digital marketing goals. He has spent the most recent four years of his career focusing building Strong terms of Digital Marketing for his clients. In addition to his strengths on Building Brands and Serving Online Marketing strategy for his clients. He is a passionate technology and digital media Writer atSeo India Agency.

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5 Online Marketing Strategies For Small Level Enterprises

Do you shop online? If you have a business, do you sell online? It has been found in research studies, that about one-third of consumers across the world shop online i.e. via Internet and these figures are shooting up day-by-day. Most business owners are now selling their products and services online and those who are not selling online, are losing their customers.

However, just having a presence on the web or online is not enough. Every business owner must use effective marketing strategies in order to convey their message about business. In this article, outlines 5 online marketing strategies which will help small business owners attract more visitors to their website.

Marketing Strategy #1-Content Marketing

What is content marketing and what are the benefits? Content Marketing is a form of marketing which involves offering quality and relevant information to the users/audience free of charge with the goal of building trust from your audience while you position yourself as an expert in your business niche. To achieve success in content marketing, you must provide content which solves the problems and answers the questions of the users. The content can be in the form of a video, article, blog posts, or vlogs. With content marketing users will come to know that you are an authority of your niche and will provide them the information which is beneficial to them. Therefore, they will return to your website or where ever you are providing the information.

Check out this video on Content Marketing:

Marketing Strategy #2-Local SEO

Do you have a local business where customers are from your area? Most of the online buyers use search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing to search about products and services they need. Most of the users click on the sites that have higher in search results. Therefore, a high ranking is required to get on the first page. Presently, most of the sites that appear on the first page are branded ones and dominate the unbranded.

Local SEO is the SEO targets the local areas. Local SEO is chosen when you don’t want to promote your business worldwide. For example, if you want to target the localized audience such as Chicago for promoting used cars, then the local users will type in “used cars in Chicago” in the search column rather than the general keyword “used cars”. Therefore it is better to target the local keywords.

Marketing Strategy #3-Social Media Marketing

Have you tapped in to the power of using social media? Social media is an effective avenue to interact with your audience and engage with them to build strong relationships. Social media is being used by many brand businesses to promote their businesses. You can also promote your business by delivering your business message on the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Linked in etc. Create an account on these sites and adopt strategies to build followers.

Marketing Strategy #4-Pay-Per-Click

If you want the quick results, then this is one of the best techniques for you. You can conduct a PPC campaign if you are so impatient that you can’t wait for your websites to climb high in search results. Your ads will be displayed on search engines, websites, blogs, etc. However, this is very costly.

Marketing Strategy #5-Reputation Marketing

Generally, the users who do online purchasing, like to buy high quality products and services. Therefore, you must provide them high quality products and services to get 5-star reviews about your business. The more excellent reviews you get on Google Local reviews, the more new customers will be attracted towards your business.

Your Turn…

Have you used an online marketing strategy to help boost your online presence and hence increase your visitors and customers that we haven’t listed? Our readers would love to hear about it. Please share your strategy below.

About Our Guest Blogger Kristine Lise :

Kristine Lise is an author who is interested in written on SEO/Internet Marketing related topics. She is currently working with SEO Rank Smart, who offers the best SEO Packages to its clients. You can see more of her work on her company site.

How To Make Your Social Bookmarking Effective For Link Generation?

Are you using social bookmarking for your own websites?

If you are not you are missing out. Why? It is simply because social bookmarking is an effective tool that can place a website in the first pages of the popular search engines like Yahoo! and Google. How is this made possible? It is done by building up backlinks to the particular website. Social bookmarking is also essential, if you are looking out for traffic for your targeted keyword phrases.

If your website is not placed in the first pages of the reputed search engines, it is really challenging for you to draw traffic for your website. Isn’t that so? It’s a fact! Now, the question is – how are backlinks helpful for your website? As you know, Google or any other reputed search engines love to have renowned websites in their first pages. Hence, quality backlinks can effectively enhance the rank of your website in the search engines.

It can become comparatively easier to get paid links than the free ones provided you have sufficient finances. Social bookmarking is for those who are looking for some free methods of acquiring backlinks.

What Are Different Approaches To Social Bookmarking?

Want to know them? Here is a brief idea of it with three methods.

3 FREE SOCIAL BOOKMARKING METHODS

Social Bookmarking Method #1-Don’t Sell On Social Bookmarking Websites

You should always remember this point. Social bookmarking sites are for information and not for providing a sales pitch. Active surfers look for information on the social bookmarking sites and so, supply them with relevant data. On receiving relevant data, they bookmark you and you in return get additional backlinks and greater amount of traffic.

Social Bookmarking Method #2-Bookmark Online Pages Redirecting A Back Link To Your Website

You might be thinking that this is a method of assisting others instead of creating traffic for your own website. But this is not at all the case. As stated earlier, quality backlinks are very important. Therefore, by assisting others in boosting their page rank and traffic, you in a way are helping yourself in gaining quality backlinks. It is not the number of backlinks but the quality of it that matters the most. So, help others to ultimately help yourself. It is a win-win situation for you.

Social Bookmarking Method #3-Make Titles Precise And Sweet

Do not make the mistake of providing lengthy reviews or long titles in social bookmarking sites. No one prefers to read that. Would you prefer that, if you are given an option? Certainly not. Think as your visitor would think. Make the description and the title attractive and short. Creating a unique title or a fascinating heading will grab the attention of the visitors in an instant. Remember you have only a few seconds to seize the attention of the viewers.

These are only some of the essential tips that you should never forget when you wish to use social bookmarking for generating backlinks for your website. There are other similar factors like do not make spam, leave an option for feedback in your bookmark and so on.

Back To You..

Social bookmarking is now used by the experts to generate quality backlinks. There are certain things that you need to keep in mind while using social bookmarking. If you have used social bookmarking and have some tips to share with our readers please add them below.

About Our Guest Blogger James Pattrick:

James Pattrick has the perfect expertise to write articles on SEO and internet marketing. His articles are a great source of information to readers and website owners. He contributes to CompleteSEOService.com on a regular basis.

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Top 6 Most Effective SMM Strategies

What Does SMM Mean?

SMM means Social Media Marketing. It involves using social media as your primary dissemination device for your marketing message. This is easier than it appears! You may set up a profile on almost any network and start posting your messages right away. Have you ever posted up things on your fan page and didn’t get many comments? Not much is happening except relatives commenting or sharing. It can be hard to get people to look at what you have written, and then engage with it to the point where they take some sort of action.

How can you create SMM buzz? How can you push your brand out more? How do you get your business noticed more? Do people share your posts, tweets, video etc.? In this article we will discuss 6 top strategies you can use to reel people into social media, how to get them to share your posts, and keep rechecking your fan page.

SMM Strategy #1 – The Viral Funny Picture

Do you use funny pictures on social media? Some of the most successful marketing campaigns on social media have come off of the back of a funny picture that has gone viral. Samsung tried to take this idea and run with it by using the image of the crazy girl looking at you from her room. What they did not count on was hundreds of people removing the Samsung caption from the bottom and putting their own caption on it. Now the image is still running riot on social media, with lots of different captions, but sadly, few people know it all started with Samsung.

SMM Strategy #2 – The Tease And The Countdown Method

Have you ever used a countdown to pull people in? What is a countdown? A countdown is when you post something with a time deadline and keep updating on how it is going. The Big Brother TV series used this method when they first started. They didn’t really tell people what all the fuss was about, but they did give you a timer that counted down to when the big event would happen. You can try a similar trick on social media.

The trick is to get people wondering what the fuss is about. Some people will resent you for the cheap marketing trick you are pulling, but they will still engage with your marketing, even though they do not want to. The countdown will also give you the perfect excuse to post on your social media pages every day without it looking like you are over promoting your event.

The good thing is that people will start to check your website to see if you are giving any clues as to what the countdown is for. It is a cheap trick, but still gets you attention on social media.

Having a contest also works great. Think of a theme, a prize, and what do they have to do to get it. Then you keep posting motivational posts as time is running out.

SMM Strategy #3 – Having Celebrities Mention Your Products

Do not make the mistake that Google made! They had Oprah Winfrey tweet about how she bought ten of their surface devices to give away as presents, but at the bottom of her tweet it showed the device she had tweeted it from an iPad.

Google cleverly has celebrities on Twitter promote their goods, because celebrities on Twitter will sometimes do better than on Facebook (which is the bigger network). Celebrities are usually loaded with thousands upon thousands of followers, all of whom are going to receive that marketing message when it arrives. They are basically handing you a massive audience, through which you may use their fans adoration to your benefit. The only problem is in convincing the celebrity to tweet the message you desire. Try smaller and local celebrities if you do not want to end up paying thousands of dollars. Local community or business niche celebrities are more affordable if they can blend in right with the message.

Take the campaign that claims people are becoming ill or developing autism from childhood vaccinations. This campaign has been running so long that people still believe it and defend it. If it were true then the 313.9 million people in America would be affected, but they are not. Contrast this to India where getting childhood vaccinations are difficult, if not possible at all. They have 14,475 deaths per day (2012) and 69% are from infectious disease. Social media campaigns about childhood vaccination risks are still running on social media today. So, if you want the most effective and longest lasting social media campaign–just lie.

SMM Strategy #5 – Blanket Social Media Coverage

This is simply a case of putting your message out there and doing it with a massive effort. It works better if you synchronize your efforts across all of the social media sites. This is going to mean that you plan and pre-manufacture all of your social media posts. Then, when the time is right, you post them all at once. This creates a blanket social media coverage that is very hard to miss. You may even post again the day after, almost as if to amplify the message you gave the day before. This is can be a great idea if you have created a 48 hour offer. Think about holidays and special events.

SMM Strategy #6 – Use Hashtags

Hashbrowns did you say? No, hashtags. Using the symbol # after a keyword.

Hashtags are a great way for people to find your brand and create more likes. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, or GooglePlus use hashtags in your posts for things you know people are going to search for. What services or products do you have? Each product or service you can give a tip or value followed by a hashtag so people can find it. Checkout the article, “The Hashtag Competition Is Now On” for other ways to use hashtags.

Back To You…

Have you found a SMM strategy that has worked well for you? If so, please share your strategy below with our audience.

About Our Guest Blogger Sonia Jackson:

My name is Sonia Jackson. If you need biology homework help, I can advise you what to do and how to manage different tasks.

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Boosting Your Social Media Results

Are your efforts using social media getting results?

To work smarter rather than harder, you can actually boost your results while you cut down on the amount of time you spend on social media. By understanding which site gives you the most power for the result you want, you can boost results.

In this article we will explain where the unique boosting power lies in the following sites: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest. We will even give your tips to boost your efforts while you actually lower your input time.

Does Your Company Need More Personal Interaction With Your Brand?

Using social media along with the a PR campaign to forge better communications can build up your brand, drive traffic to your site, and put your company in front of potential customers. Using the correct social media for the result you seek can help develop a better personal interaction between the service seeker and the provider while promoting a more involved acquaintance.

What Results Is Your Company Seeking?

By recognizing your target audience and encouraging constant feedback it will not only bolster your relations with your future consumers but also will help represent your brand firmly in their minds. Each social media site is unique and can be used to do different things. Decide which results you are seeking and then use the right social media site to maximize those results.

Here are keys for boosting results on the 6 major social media sites:

1. For A Personal Contact Boost Use Instagram

There is no better personal touch than a photo situation. This combined with the new rage and trend around Instagram will help you lure in more personal contact with your service seekers. What can you do with Instagram?

Instagram Tip #1 – Photo Contest

Arrange a photo contest around a specific theme on the company’s Instagram account asking your customers to send in photos depicting their most personalized connection with your business. This is especially popular with business housed in the fields of journalism, sports, travel, food, FMCG etc.

Instragram Tip #2 – Show Off Your Products

Do you have a business with multiple products? Take pictures of each product and show case them. Ask your fans to guess what a certain product is to get their engagement up. Another tip is to take pictures of people using your products.

Instragram Tip #3 – Demonstrations

Is your business service orientated? Great, show pictures of your service results by displaying before and after pictures. For example, if you did blacktopping, show the before and after. The same ideas can be used for landscaping, interior design, painting, carpet cleaning, etc. A picture can really showcase your work and show the different stages.

This social site is great at building up person to person contact and makes it easy to show the behind the scenes of your business.

2. To Boost Featured Conversations Use Google+

Google+ should be a part of your local strategy and it can help you with search results. By adding a few of your own technical tips or PR tips along with past or future customers you immediately win their trust as well as confidence on your product.

Google+ Tip #1 – Circles And Hangouts

Google+ has a few brilliant benefits like the circles and hangouts that can be creatively utilized to talk to your customers. You can use these features with your future ventures, events or programs as well as stay in the thick of live conversations as to how your product are faring currently in the market.

Google+ Tip #2 – Business Page

Build a Google+ business page and shape your audience based on the type of interaction you need to maintain. When people follow your page, you add them back to your circles and organize them the way that you want to remember them by. For example if you organize your circles by location, when you have an offer for a certain city, just post your offer to the circle of fans in that city. You can add a person to more than one circle for multiple categories.

Google+ Tip #3 – Save Money To Boost Your Post

On Google+ you don’t have to pay money so that all your fans see your post. Unlike Facebook, everyone who you add back will see your post. If you want the world to see your post, select public for the circle your are posting to and put in keywords with hashtags.

Google+ Tip #4 – Hangouts

The Google+ hangouts is another feature that helps you conduct live conversations with photos, videos, conversation, so much that the all parties are more aware of each other’s existence. This promotes credibility and conviction about each person included in the hangout. Save on gas for driving, no more hotel rooms or flying out of town for seminars, you can use the hangout feature free of charge.

Still wondering why Google+ should be used for business? Check out this article, “Love That Google+”

3. To Boost Credibility Use LinkedIn

Are you on Linkedin? LinkedIn is more of an official channel to booster media existence for business. This is where you can showcase your resume. It is also a fine way to embark on discussions or queries which are directed from a more professional set of people who can also be like minded sharing your interests in music, sports or food and thus providing a better into the deeper aspects of personalities. LinkedIn has one of the biggest professional presences and has over a million groups within

LinkedIn Tip #1 – Join Groups

Here a feature to help you focus on the groups that align with your target audience so that they can support your brand and help promote it. There is an average of at least 50 members per group. You need to regularly asses your members so that they remember you and will then support your present or future market activities. The InMail is another feature that can be used to advance your business interests by identifying the exact people with whom you should interact.

LinkedIn Tip #2 – Get Endorsed

Get recommendations from others. By endorsing others, they will endorse you back. Just remember to be willing to spend time giving in order to get.

4. To Boost Your Reach Use Facebook

Does your business have a Facebook fan page?

Facebook Tip – Utilize Your Fan Page

Use the Facebook fan pages to highlight your employees as well as reach out to your fans. You can also use these pages to shed light on your humane side by putting photos, events or discussions about social causes and your own commitments. Emphasizing your own company events or employees who have excelled in service, highlights your benevolent image and also promotes the positivity within the industry. This channel also has the power to predict a consumer’s behavior by revealing its characteristics. By following the general trend of consumer likes and dislikes from their respective Facebook page, you can also delve within the mind of the consumer to predict his behavioral pattern, an essential item to help strategize your future moves. Also, another feature to not to miss out on is events; Facebook is perfect for organizing seminars and open house discussions.

Do you want some more ideas on what do post? You need to try to post daily in order to prevent your brand from going stale. Check out this article, “Facebook Fan Pages: What To Post?”

5. To Boost Personal Relations Use Twitter

Are you using Twitter? With mobile social networking gaining momentum, Twitter is the constant stream of information that connects you to your followers instantly. Use this media channel to establish a very personal relation with all your followers.

Twitter Tip #1 – Acknowledging Each Tweet

Acknowledging each tweet in an encouraging note, trying to solve small queries or directing user to the appropriate desk are small ways that makes your customers think better of you and your services.

Twitter Tip #2 – Use The Vine App

Furthermore, the Vine app of Twitter enables you to upload a short video say of 6 sec duration. You can use this to give a free tour of your production center or maybe the day’s lucky shopper. Anything that adds an individual stamp is a sure shot hit for your followers or customers.

6. To Boost Visual Images Use Pinterest

Social media high point is definitely images, images and some more engaging images. Pinterest is one such media app that uses images to build stronger rapport with audiences that too in a very creative manner. Not only that but you can connect it to Facebook personal so when you pin a new picture your friends will see it.

Pinterest Tip #1 – Have Contests

You can hold contests to engage audiences and also promote awareness about your product as pins are likes and re-pinned and thus move around a wide circle of Internet media activity.

Pinterest Tip #2 – Have A Fan Board

You can also create a fan board and have fans photo themselves and enjoying your product thus prompting them to go try out your product and being able to participate in the action. It also works as good as any testimonials with a visual impact. Moreover it promotes loyalty and social involvement in a regular basis.

Remember that social media is not a one way platform. It is to be used to engage with your fans and not just set it up and leave. Be engaging and answer questions on all these platforms.

Your Turn…

Have you boosted your social media results? Have your decreased your time spent on social media by working smarter rather than harder? If you have and found a way that we have not listed above, please shared your social media tips with our audience by posting below.

About Our Guest Blogger Allie Branda:

Allie loves writing and blogging about technology, gadgets, and social media.

Social Media SEO And Social Signals

What does social media have to do with ranking?

Is it time for SEO to move over? Presently social media has become an optimal way of business promotion and helps one rank on top of search engines. The same can be done through customer feedback and the process is better known as social signals. In this article we will discuss what social signals are, what is has to do with rankings, and the dos and don’ts of social media SEO.

What Are Social Signals?

Have you ever seen a post that has a 1,000 likes and shares and is going viral? This is social signal that the post is important, newsworthy, giving value, funny, etc.

Social signals can be defined as views people have on social media platforms like Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Etc. What the search engines are now counting and paying attention to is the activity going on with your posts and tweets. This means how many likes, shares, plus ones, retweets, etc your posts are getting. They are seeing if your social media is dead or alive. So if your posts overall have a lot of activity going on versus nothing, the search engines will take notice and rank you higher. Therefore, the brands that set up profiles and leave camp will not get ranked.

Is Your Brand A Social Authority?

Social signals indicate that the brand is being talked about by your consumers. Google views that your brand is popular and buzzing when it has more likes, retweets, pins, shares, etc. It is Iike they are voting and saying this brand is hot and must be noticed. This is important because the more popular your brand is on social media the more likely it is to rank on the search engines.

The Relevance Of Social Signals

Social signals are relevant for success of your business strategy as they reduce the bounce rate of your website and help create repeated site views. It is also worth mentioning here that social signals from one page can impact other pages within a given domain.

To use these social signals to your advantage, you have to follow certain rules of Do’s and Don’ts. Below are listed some of the relevant Do’s and Don’ts. Follow these rules to use social signals to your advantage.

Do: Post regularly On Social Media Sites

Are you posting regularly on Faceobok, Twitter, Google Plus, etc? Has your social media gone stale? It better to post every day instead of one day with an abundance amount of posts. If your last post was newsworthy at the time it was posted, by the next week it would be old and stale news. Everything needs to be fresh and current.

Posting regularly on social media is vital for success of your endeavor. If you do not find time for posting some new content on a regular basis, ensure that you repeat the posts; else you will risk losing potential customers.

Don’t: Post The Same Content On All Your Social Media Platforms

How many social media sites do you use? Are you using more than one? If you are using both Twitter and Facebook to promote your brand, make sure to use separate content for both the channels.

Using same content on both mediums is a key mistake that needs to be avoided at any cost; else you will lose valuable customers.

Do: Interact With Your Social Community

Are you interacting with people on your social sites and engaging? Interacting with your social community is vital. People who find time to tweet on your post or like your post deserve a considerate view from you. Acknowledging their effort will pave the way to your success.

Don’t: Be Selfish And Be All About You

People know who is selfish and who is giving. Just like you like to have your posts and tweets liked, commented on, and shared, you have to return the favor back. You can’t just post things and expect people to go crazy over your posts. Be more giving to your fans and followers and friends. Yes, that means you have to put in effort to hit the like button, plus one button, make a comment, and share.

Do: Hit The Like Button, Comment, And Share

Are you hitting the like button or plus one button on other’s posts? Are you commenting on other’s posts? Are you sharing other’s posts? Just like the law of karma –what goes around comes around. It is all about building relationships. Do you want your known as the person who is all about them or a brand who doesn’t care? No matter what social media site you are on make sure to give and not just take.

Do: Use Pictures As Much As Possible

Try to include pictures and graphics as often as possible. Pictures have more responses, likes, and shares. You are more likely to have communication immediately and this can increase business for you. For example notice how the pictures on this post helped hold your attention. However, one should avoid posting irrelevant pictures as the same can initiate a negative result and your potential clients can even think about shifting their loyalties.

Do: Be Active On Weekends

Are you active on the weekends in your social media sites? Most people who participate on social media websites are the most active on weekends. Tap this potential market and create a positive vibe with them. Your initiatives will definitely get noticed and appreciated.

However, ensure that you neither use nor encourage bad language. This can create a negative impression about your endeavors and can discourage your potential clients.

Creating social signals from social media SEO is not a tough task. If you paid attention to the above listed rules, you will notice that people will start identifying with your brand.

Your Turn…

Have you created social signals that have brought you success? If so, share with our audience below so we can learn from each other.

About Our Guest Blogger Kelly Marsh:

Kelly is a writer/blogger. She loves writing, traveling and reading books. She contributes on Hydroxycut.